U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s advice on how to handle the North Korean crisis. “Let her speak for Germany,” Trump told reporters yesterday referring to the statement made by Merkel earlier in the day. “She’s a very good friend of mine,” Trump said. “Maybe she’s referring to Germany, she’s certainly not referring to the United States.”
Merkel had criticised Trump’s recent statements aimed at North Korean regime, saying, “I consider a verbal escalation to be the wrong response.”
“Trump reacts to Merkel rebuke with a clear message,” reported the leading German daily Die Welt. The country’s state-run broadcaster Deutsche Welle came to Merkel’s defense, complaining, peace-loving German Chancellor “advocate[s] an international diplomatic response” and “Trump ignores Merkel’s pleas against violence.”
Germany’s most-read newspaper Die Welt reported the latest exchange between Trump and Merkel:
US President Donald Trump won’t be showing much interest to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s warning against the escalation in North Korean crisis. “Let her speak for Germany,” Trump said on Friday.Earlier, Merkel had warned against the use of military, and made it clear that Germany would only be engaged itself non-militarily. “I see no military solution to the conflict,” Merkel said in Berlin on Friday. And reacting to the question if Germany would stand with the US in the case of a war, she replied that she doesn’t consider it “necessary”.She criticised the sharp rhetoric in the North Korean crisis. “I am convinced that the escalation of language would not lead to the solution of the conflict,” She added in light of ever increasing threats from both sides. [Translation by author]
“President Trump’s “fire and fury” tirade against the regime of Kim Jong Un has escalated tensions with North Korea,” commented Der Spiegel in its international edition. “Seldom has that threat been as great as it is right now, given that nuclear warheads now exist on both sides of the Pacific, representing an existential threat to each end. On the one side, you have in Trump an unrestrained and unfocused Twitter tycoon who has achieved very little during his first 200 days in office. On the other side, you have North Korea’s dictator, a man for whom shill war cries are merely a staged show of power.”
Martin Schulz, a long-time EU official and Merkel’s socialist rival in the next month’s general elections lamented that Trump “far worse” than expected. “Trump is a risk to his country and the entire world.”
Ironically, Schulz doesn’t consider Merkel’s open doors policy for illegal migrants a risk: “Frau Merkel has taken a clear stand, [and] I share it,” Schulz said at the onset of the Migrant Crisis two years ago.
Germany’s leading current affairs magazine Der Spiegel was surprised to see the current US President responding in kind to North Korean provocations “In the past, most U.S. presidents have put up with this kind of saber rattling. But not Trump, who responds to just about every threat with a counterthreat,” the German weekly wrote.
After eight of Obama’s leading-from-behind Foreign Policy, Merkel and the EU are having a tough time adjusting to the new leadership style that Trump has brought to Washington.
Video: Merkel rejects the ‘use of force’ in North Korea
[Cover image via YouTube]
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